Related Articles

Only three of the original 11 allegations against Mr Vaz were upheld and he described the punishment as "disproportionate". He claimed that he had been denied natural justice and fairness.

The ban is a serious embarrassment for Tony Blair, who strongly defended Mr Vaz at the height of the furore before last year's general election, claiming that the allegations were groundless.

Last night, Mr Vaz launched an outspoken attack on Mrs Filkin, whose two-year inquiry into his financial affairs was the longest carried out since the role of a parliamentary standards watchdog was created in 1995 after a series of "sleaze" scandals at Westminster.

He claimed that her report had been rushed out as a "last hurrah". However, her findings were upheld by the cross-party committee, which used strong language to condemn Mr Vaz and recommend his suspension.

Provided the penalty is upheld by the Commons as a whole - likely to be a formality - it will equal the one-month suspension imposed on Teresa Gorman, a former Tory MP, in the last Parliament for not declaring property interests.

That was the longest suspension since the introduction of the new standards system. It will mean that Mr Vaz will be barred from the precincts of the Commons for four weeks and also lose £4,318 in pay.

The committee upheld three of the original complaints against Mr Vaz, including that he had provided "misleading information" about his family's financial relationship with the Hinduja brothers, the Indian businessmen who donated money to the Millennium Dome.

It also ruled that he had failed to register a paid job 14 years ago and failed to register a donation from a company.

Normally it would have recommended an apology to the Commons. But by "wrongly interfering" in the investigative process, Mr Vaz had committed a contempt of the House and committed serious breaches of the code of conduct.

The committee found that Mr Vaz had made an untrue accusation to Mrs Filkin that Miss Eggington - who was among the complainants against the MP - had made a telephone call to his sick and elderly mother.

They noted that the allegation led to Miss Eggington being interviewed by Leicestershire police, and that it could have intimidated her or undermined her credibility.

After Mrs Filkin contacted police about Mr Vaz's accusation, he subsequently accused her of interfering in a criminal investigation and threatened to report her to the Commons Speaker.

The committee concluded that Mr Vaz failed in his public duty under the code of conduct "to act on all occasions in accordance with the public trust placed in [him]".

The appendices to the committee's report included a letter, dated Jan 10 2002, to Mrs Filkin from Det Supt Nick Gargan of Leicestershire police.

In the letter, the officer said the force had investigated whether Mr Vaz or his mother were the victims of criminal acts, but concluded that no malicious telephone calls were made to Mr Vaz's mother.

He disclosed that the force had also considered whether Mr Vaz himself had committed any offences, including "wasteful employment of the police and an attempt to pervert the course of justice".

Shortly after the report was published, Mr Vaz called a news conference at Westminster. He said was pleased that the report cleared him of all the main allegations made against him.

In a bizare twist, he claimed that the police were still investigating his allegations about the telephone call to his mother.

However, Leicestershire police later denied that any investigation was under way, and said there was no evidence that a witness had made a malicious call to Mr Vaz's mother.